


Us And Them

by beer_good



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Ancient History, Backstory, Gen, Pre-Series, Wolfram & Hart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:50:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2142969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beer_good/pseuds/beer_good
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Europe, 30,000 BC. This is how it starts: kill, protect, eat. W&H backstory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Us And Them

_We go on, no matter what. Our firm has always been here, in one form or another._

_\- Holland Manners_

**Title:** Us And Them  
 **Author:** Beer Good   
 **Rating:** PG13  
 **Word Count:** ~1000  
 **Summary:** This is how it starts: kill, protect, eat.

**Us And Them**

_This is how it starts: Kill, protect, eat._

He has to get close. Gakha sneaks up, downwind from his prey, bare feet sinking in the snow. Closer, wrapping the sheep's skin tighter around himself against the biting cold and to hide his scent. He's just a few feet away when the hart raises its head and turns to him, unaccustomed to this new enemy, looks in his eyes. Its eyes are alive, almost like Gakha's own, the steam around its muzzle the same as the one from his, the growling in their stomachs the same. They watch each other for what seems like an eternity, but the smell of wooly grasseater seems to calm it and it turns back to the hole it's been scraping in the snow, searching for the frozen moss below.

Gakha jabs the spear into its neck.

It's not the best place, hard to get a direct kill, but it's cold and the wooden weapon is too brittle to pierce the larger animal's chest. The hart screams, jerks the spear out of his hands, tries to run, stumbles, hot red blood spurting out onto the white snow. Shivering, he follows it as its strength runs out, slowing down, sinking to its knees. He picks up a stone. Looks into its eyes, so much more alive than the dumb sheep, so much more. Thinks of the eyes of his children back in the cave and brings the stone down. _Crack._ Its eyes glaze over, not afraid, not hating, just confused, toppling over, breathing, whimpering, panting, gurgling.

Still.

Gakha kneels beside his kill. Touches the warm fur, hungrily laps up the hot blood. Grabs a leg and starts pulling it homewards. It's getting dark and he's still far from home when he hears the howls, sees the shadows running under the trees. He hurries, but his load is heavy and it's so cold and there's so many of them. So hungry. He pulls the spear out of the dead hart's neck, screams back at the wolves, stands over his prey, waiting. Us or them.

_This is how it starts: in blood and soot._

The flames dance across the cave walls as Gakha stumbles inside, gasping from the effort to take the last few steps. His wives and children run towards him, catching him as he falls. He lets them carry him to the warmest corner while First Wife goes outside to drag in what's left of the hart. As the women do women's work (carving, gutting, tanning, preparing) Gakha tells the children of his great hunt, of fighting off the wolves, of killing three of them even after they made off with half the meat, even after they wounded him. He dips shaking fingers in blood and draws their images on the wall, tries to impart, teach, impress before it's too late. The Wolf: danger, killer, evil. The Ram: warmth, protection, safety. The Hart: noble, beautiful, food. Never forget: need them, fear them. He holds his oldest son, squeezing his arm as hard as he can: Never forget.

They feast that night. Gakha, with no appetite, watches his children gorge themselves, blood running down their chins. They huddle from the cold around the small fire, and Gakha falls asleep against Third Wife's pregnant belly, his pain fading away.

In the morning, they carry his corpse outside, well away from the cave. The ground is frozen, no chance to dig a grave, so they wrap him in the sheep's skin (he must need it, he's so cold) and bury him in the snow. The children whimper, but the women tell them to be brave; there's still many many days of winter, and at least now they have meat. For a while.

Afterwards, the sons go out to search for wood, as they've done every day of their lives. Only today, they come back not only with firewood but also with sleek, strong branches that they sharpen into spears as night falls, hearing the wolves digging through the snow outside. Pahk picks up a charred stick from the fire. He's the man now, all of 12 summers. He becomes the first of countless to fill in the images on the cave wall left by his father, first in blood, now in soot and fire: Wolf. Ram. Hart. And underneath, he draws Man. Father. They watch the images in sorrow, fear, respect; there's big magic in this. Them or us. Need them. Fear them. Never forget.

As they go out hunting the next morning, they pause before the drawing. Raise their spears in salute and supplication, eyes gleaming with defiance. One of the boys takes a piece of coal and draws the symbols on his chest; the others follow. The women watch as their children go out into the biting cold, to kill, to protect, hopefully to return and eat.

_This is how it starts: in name and deed._

Enough of them do return, of course. And it goes on, no matter what. The images keep getting filled in, in cave after cave, generation after generation, in fear and respect; kill, protect, eat. Them or us. They look at the images, plead with them and hate them, but they don't look into the eyes of their prey anymore. Their spears are getting stronger. Their bows can kill at a distance. Their fires blaze higher. Their clothes are warmer. They move into huts, teepees, houses. The cold doesn't bite like it used to. They drive the wolves back. At some point, they abandon the caves completely. And it goes on, no matter what. In blood and soot and fire, though they know how to kill with the push of a button or the scratch of a pen; though they devise laws to protect; though they eat sushi and drink espresso.

But on a granite wall in the back of a dark cave, untouched by millennia, the images remain. After all, we mustn't ever forget:

It wasn't us.

We didn't do it.

It was them.

The wolf, the ram, the hart. Their will be done.


End file.
